Ramina Samuel becomes first Assyrian counselor at Chicago’s District 219

August 2018 | By Joe Snell | Photos Contributed

Chicago, IL– Ramina Samuel’s heart was racing as she walked toward her new office at Niles North High School earlier this August. For years, the Assyrian Iraqi native had grown accustomed to filling part-time and temporary counseling positions in the Chicagoland area. Now, she is a full-time counselor at Niles North High School, a public school within Chicago’s largely Assyrian populated District 219. She is the first Assyrian to hold the position in the district’s history.

Ramina (right) with a friend in Dohuk, Iraq.

It is a position she has dreamed of since arriving with her family to Chicago from Dohuk, Iraq in 2004. In her first year in the Chicago public school system, Samuel was held back a year into eighth grade. That experience would encourage her to help students who were also struggling with their transition into the American education system.

“Growing up in Chicago, it was difficult for me to go through the whole school system,” Samuel said. “In Iraq, your grade point average decides what field you are going to. All of a sudden in the US, I had so many opportunities. I could choose so many different colleges in so many different fields. I was not ready for that. I think my parents were not ready for that.”

After completing her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2012, Samuel worked a year as a pre-kindergarten through middle school substitute teacher before starting her masters degree at National Louis University. Samuel wanted to tackle education disparity in Chicago’s immigrant communities with a focus on students with limited English proficiency and also those who came from vulnerable backgrounds.

“When students come here, a lot of these schools are not aware of what kind of background they’ve had,” she said. “A lot of these kids have missed months or even years of schooling, especially those that went to areas where there was persecution or war. When those children come here, they are placed into grades matching their age. I wanted to give high school students what was not always available to me as a first generation immigrant.”

Through her graduate program, she was set up with a number of temporary opportunities including a position at Maine East High School as well as Madison Elementary in Skokie.

During her one year practicum, she worked at Glenbrook North High School. It was during this time that she was assigned her first Assyrian student.

“An Assyrian student needed help with FAFSA and the parents were assigned to me,” Samuel said. “The mom was very surprised when she found out I was Assyrian. She was glad that there was someone who was speaking to her in her own language and who was willing to help. It made me more sure that helping Assyrians is what I wanted to do.”

After graduating, Samuel worked at two non-profit organizations, West 40 and Mosaic Therapy. The positions taught her about strategies in alternative learning and allowed her to help students with Arabic and Assyrian as their first languages.

At the end of June 2018, Ramina heard about an opening as a school counselor at Niles North High School.

At the time, she wasn’t even looking for a new position, focusing instead on planning her upcoming wedding. After heavy encouragement, however, she finally did apply. It was the only school she would apply for this summer and she admitted not expecting a call back.

Ramina did receive a call back, though. The week of her wedding. It was also the week her close childhood friend was hospitalized and would later pass away from cancer. Despite a hectic week including two rounds of interviews, she was selected for the role.

“Receiving the position was very overwhelming,” she said. “This was one of my biggest goals but I didn’t expect it to happen for a few more years. For this to happen and for me to be able to work in a community where I can share my experience as an immigrant and my skills in culture and language, it was very exciting.”

Niles North High School is part of District 219. The district has made significant strides in recent years to address a growing Assyrian community, including the addition of Assyrian Naema Abraham on the school board and the formation of an Assyrian parent group.

Samuel hopes to get more Assyrian parents more involved through the new parent group.

“A lot of the lack of Assyrian parent involvement within the schools comes from our culture,” Samuel said. “We entirely entrust schools with our kids. Assyrian parents might show up to the school once or twice versus other parents we work with that are involved in every step of the way, including scheduling classes and special activities and career planning.”

In her new role, Samuel will provide guidance to students from ninth through twelfth grades. She is one of only a few counselors at Niles North that has English Language Learning (ELL) students in her caseload.

As a former ELL student herself, Samuel hopes to make these students feel more comfortable by relating to their situations.

“Students can finally see someone in a counselor position where they can see themselves,” Samuel said. “This doesn’t just apply to Assyrians. Working with immigrant students, it’s important for them to relate. I think it’s really nice for them to see that they can get to that higher education level.”

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Chicago, IL – “I never get tired of traveling because I travel for my people and enjoy accomplishing something for my nation. I also love people watching. That’s why I go to the airport an hour earlier, just to sit around and watch everyone and listen to my podcasts. I love people and I get joyful when I hear them laughing. We need more happiness in the world. We don’t see it anymore. Everyone’s head is down, everyone is looking at their phones, everyone is so intense. There is so much conflict in the world, you don’t see anyone laugh anymore. So when I do see those glimpses of joy and happiness, it makes me so happy.”

Chicago, IL – “I grew up in a bad country and couldn’t talk about anything, even our flag because you were always scared of the government. A lot of people don’t know how this flag is special for people. That’s why we do this in our yard, because we want people to recognize that if we didn’t have this American flag then we wouldn’t be sitting in this house today. People fought for this flag, for this freedom so we can sit here together and talk about being both Assyrian and American. You lose one of your identities if you don’t.”

Dallas, TX – “With motherhood, you first think of all of those happy times of sitting down and playing and going out. But it’s more about giving all of who you are, everything you have, plus more. When you think to yourself, ‘I’ve given everything I have,’ and then they wake up at night one more time and you say, ‘I have to do this again, I have to give more after I’ve already given everything.’ It’s the hardest job and it takes everything out of you, but it’s worth it and you would do it all over again when you see them happy.”

Dallas, TX – “I started playing soccer in my village. It was a reason to get together as Assyrians every week. We would play soccer and then go eat or hang out. I eventually played for the Assyrian club in Urmi. When I moved to San Jose, I helped found the Infinite Sports Association. Now in Dallas, it’s funny that there are a lot of empty soccer fields that you don’t get elsewhere. We used to pay a lot of money to get a couple hours to play on this type of field. In San Jose, for two hours we would pay almost $250 and here in Dallas this field is free with beautiful grass, free goals, everything free.”

Dallas, TX – “Having grown up in the West, one of the positives is that my girls have the ability to empower themselves. For me, raising girls here is similar to raising boys. I’m going to teach them what I know, whether it’s science, engineering, you name it, it doesn’t make a difference to me their gender. There is no glass ceiling from my perspective, I want them to be as successful as they can be.”

Chicago, IL – “I started vlogging to have a more highly produced version of an archive of my life. This year’s vlog of the Assyrian convention is footage from a lot of different things. It’s both the pool parties and something more in-depth and cultural, so a mix of both. I also did a lot of things that doing a vlog for wouldn’t do justice, like the youth summit. You have to be there for that, it’s not the same to see it, you have to be there and interact with people. One day I’m going to look back and have all of these memories nicely produced of what I did at this convention. I encourage everyone to do it.”